THE bond between father and son shone like a beacon when I had the opportunity to speak to the Swans, father and son, during the lockdown.

“Dad adored his riding whether it was hunting or riding as an amateur and I guess he passed that on to me, he loved the training and always had a few horses for me to ride,” Charlie Swan said of his father, Donald. “My great grandfather on my mother’s side was champion flat jockey in England and rode a Derby winner. I would have often looked to Dad for advice and I gained a lot of experience with him.”

The racing world is abounds with father and son combinations; Ted and Ruby Walsh, Tommy and Paul Carberry spring to mind, among others, and up there with the best has to be Donald and Charlie Swan. While Charlie has a remarkable story to tell, Donald’s story is by far the more colourful.

He must be counted among the last of the Corinthians. These young men, often from an army background, who would take up race riding, point-to-pointing and National Hunt racing and then go on to become masters of hounds. Donald ticks all those boxes and more.

Born in Lincolnshire, on leaving school at Gordonstoun, he joined the army, as his second choice. His first choice was a career on the stage but his father, with some difficulty, persuaded him to take up a commission in the army. He luckily missed all major wars so was able to become a sporting officer, hunting, point-to-pointing and occasionally venturing under the rules.

With army retirement imminent, his dad advised him to buy a place in Ireland and he found Modreeny House, a substantial property which ran to 200 acres in Cloughjordan, Co Tipperary.

However, having bought it, he couldn’t close the sale as there was an embargo on non-nationals buying land in the Republic of Ireland. However, fortuitous fertility rescued the situation as Donald and Theresa were expecting their second child who was born in Dublin and all nationality problems were solved.

On arrival in Cloughjordan, he naturally threw himself into the hunting world with the local Ormond Foxhounds, then hunted by Arthur Dalgety, who was coming to the end of his tether. All too suddenly Arthur passed on without having nominated a suitable replacement and after an emergency committee meeting, Donald sportingly offered to take over at least until someone else could be found.

Donald’s appointment heralded a golden era in the annals of the Ormond. This was in 1972 and, almost 20 years later, he was still in office with hounds kennelled at home in Modreeny, where they still are to this day. He hunted hounds with distinction for more than 10 seasons until George Younghusband joined the mastership and professional huntsman Pat Lynch took the horn.

It wasn’t all hunting by any means. As well as producing a top class pack of hounds, he and Theresa were increasing their family to include Natasha, Melissa and Charlie. Racing was also very high on the agenda. Donald had the very useful chaser Zimulator (by Narrator) who took him far beyond the confines of the North Riding.

2015: Charlie Swan with his son, a young Harry (left), and his parents Donald and Theresa after the Swan-trained Rogue Trader won at Navan \ Healyracing.ie

He qualified for the 1975 renewal of the Aintree Grand National by winning the Ingolsby Chase in Punchestown (owner up). In those proper days before health and safety along with its stablemate public liability took control, sporting owner jockeys could compete in the world’s greatest race. The 1975 Aintree renewal had a particularly Irish feel to it. It was won by Tommy Carberry on the second favourite L’Escargot, beating Red Rum into second.

Fifth was Ron Barry on The Dickler and among the non-finishers were Ted Walsh, Tommy Stack and the gallant captain, Donald, who got to the fourth on the home-produced Zimulator carrying 10st at the very generous price of 100/1. This price wasn’t widely taken up outside the bookies office in Nenagh.

The contest was watched avidly at home in Modreeny by young Charlie, then aged seven, and we can only guess how the experience influenced his future career. It must be more than coincidence that three of those Grand National jockeys went on to produce sons who became champion jockeys in their own right - Ruby, Paul and of course Charlie, who was the first Irish jockey to beat Martin Molony’s historic tally. Zimulator’s National career was far from over. Donald took him on to Oslo to run in the Norwegian Grand National. While they had a sporting run they didn’t return with any silverware.

But there was always hunting. Donald records a particular red-letter day from a meet at Ardcroney. Hounds found and ran six or seven miles without a check right as far as Lough Derg at Terryglass. Young Charlie, then aged around 10, was out on the 13.2 pony Lightening. Sadly, in the excitement of the run, the young jockey had been forgotten. As hounds marked to ground, Donald turned to his whipper-in Martin Totley asking him to go back and find young Charlie, only have it pointed out that Charlie and Lightening were standing right behind him!

Drama

It is said that Donald’s first love has always been the stage and he became a key member of the Nenagh Dramatic Society along with his fellow thespian John Riggs-Miller. John brought with him an aura of professionalism as he had toured with the famous Anew McMaster players who brought Shakespearian productions to rural Ireland.

Donald’s performance as Prof Higgins to John’s Colonel Pickering in My Fair Lady are still spoken of with awe in the salons of North Tipperary.

All the while, young Charlie was growing up and riding pony racing with some success. But even budding jockeys have to go school so Charlie was packed off to Wilson’s Hospital boarding school in Multyfarnham, Co Westmeath.

It would be fair to say that his scholastic career was not an outstanding success, but the tedium of irregular Latin verbs was lightened by riding out at Jimmy Tormey’s racing yard nearby. What Charlie really wanted was to go racing and while this life-changing career move was under discussion, Donald decided to give the aspiring jockey a couple of rides.

In Naas on March 19th 1983, Donald put young Charlie up on the unraced two-year-old Final Assault. The bookmakers who couldn’t have known they were looking at a future champion, freely offered 20-1, which was liberally taken up by Donald and his friends. Charlie didn’t let them down and won in a canter by six lengths.

Beaten next time out he went on to win on Sessetta, only for the combination to win again in Limerick 10 days later. This gave the debutante jockey a 50% hit rate with three wins out of six rides.

It was probably these early successes that convinced the Modreeny stewards to allow Charlie to say goodbye to Wilsons Hospital to become an apprentice with Kevin Prendergast.

Istabraq

The other apprentice turned out to be Kieron Fallon, who hadn’t yet ridden a winner. “Kieron and I always got on well and I shared a house with him for a time,” Charlie said. “From a young age my role models were Lester Piggott and Michael Kinane on the flat and John Francome and Richard Dunwoody over jumps. The horse that probably put me on the map was a horse called Ash Creek, trained by Paddy Mullins. I rode a lot of winners for Paddy and Maureen Mullins whom I admired greatly.

“Without doubt Istabraq winning his third champion hurdle gave me the most pleasure in my career. He was a true athlete. Winning a two-mile champion chase at Cheltenham on Viking Flagship for the late David Nicholson was also a huge thrill.”

Istabraq and Charlie Swan leads their rivals in the 1997 Sun Alliance Hurdle \ Healyracing.ie

No doubt Istabraq was the high point of his career but it was also about then that romance came into his life with Carol Hyde of Camas Park. She was a very useful jockey herself with 13 winners under the rules as well riding eventing at four-star [now five-star] level.

“I rode against so many great jockeys - Richard Dunwoody, Tony McCoy, Tommy Carmody, Ruby Walsh, Norman Williamson (my brother in law!), Barry Geraghty, Paul Carberry but the best without doubt was Ruby,” Charlie proclaimed.

Ted Walsh, as always was forthcoming, saying: “There was no one like Charlie to read a race, down at the start he would size up the opposition and watch the body language of the other jockeys. He rarely got it wrong.”

Charlie remembers a mortifying moments at the Curragh. “I was about 17 or 18, riding at the Curragh, and jumping out of the stalls, the poppers went on my britches. After a furlong I could feel them getting lower and lower and as I frantically tried to pull them up, all I could hear was Joanna Morgan whistling from behind me and Christy Roche shouting to just leave them alone and ride on! I finished third but it was very embarrassing.”

He loved the game. “It wasn’t hard to keep motivated when you are riding lots of winners. But I got to the stage if I got into the car without riding a winner I would have been in very bad form!”

Charlie was twice leading jockey in Cheltenham in 1992 and 1993. After his first success as leading jockey, Cloughjordan decided to recognise the victory. A special “Cheltenham Pub Crawl” was organised with Charlie brought from tavern to tavern by pony and trap, starting at the Clough Inn and ending at the Railway Bar to be finished with a suitable (non-alcoholic) presentation in St Kieran’s Church of Ireland Hall.

Record-holder

He was champion jockey no less than nine times. He won his first championship in 1989-90 and retained the title until his retirement in the 1997-98 season. He holds the Irish record for the most winners in a season.

“I had a great career and was incredibly lucky to ride for JP McManus and Aidan O’Brien whom I have great admiration, they were a huge help to me. I also rode for a lot of other very good trainers such as Dessie Hughes, Noel Meade, Edward O’Grady, Mouse Morris, Arthur Moore, John Kiely, Willie Mullins, Tony Mullins, John Hayden, Enda Bolger and so many more.”

Charlie was the first to break Martin Molony’s record for Irish winners, a record that had stood since Martin was forced into retirement in 1951, aged 26.

“Martin Molony was a phenomenal rider of his time and breaking his record of the number of winners ridden in a season was obviously a great boost. I think it was 112. My best season was 150 winners in Ireland and 12 in England. For Martin, it was obviously a lot tougher to ride so many winners with less racing and travel not so easy.

“Training, I loved, but the recession hit our business hard with builders going out of the game and it just was not feasible any longer, so after very tough decisions we stopped in 2015. Modreeny keeps us terribly busy and is a super farm for rearing youngstock. We had been trading all along and will continue doing so. When Covid does not get in the way, I travel to France for racing and sales sourcing horses for JP McManus,” Charlie explains.

Modreeny now has swopped residents with Charlie, Carol and family in the main house, and Donald and Theresa have taken up residence in Charlie’s bungalow. Charlie and Carol have four children. “The house is getting quieter with Harry away and Olivia in boarding school. David is working in Dublin and Max (12) keeps us busy with his sports.

Olivia Swan with Rockon Pedro, winners of the CCIP2*-L at the 2019 Kilguilkey International \ EquusPix Photography

“Harry, who won a team bronze medal at Eventing Europeans in 2018, is enjoying his amateur riding and is now reading Biological and Biomedical Science in Trinity. Olivia loves her eventing and had great success riding for Ireland at European Championships 2019 finishing 13th individually. She’s now studying for exams.”

The last word must go to Tipperary trainer Edward O’Grady who has great admiration for the former champion jockey. “Charlie is an absolute gentleman either on or off a horse. He rode a lot of winners for me but his best day must have been Cheltenham in 1994 when he had a treble. He started off by winning the Sun Alliance on ‘the peoples champion’ Danoli before having a double for me on Time for A Run and finishing a perfect day by winning the bumper on Mucklemeg.”

Asked how Charlie got so many winners, O’Grady added: “It’s simple…he was just the best!”